Taken from “Why God Incarnates; How Baba Prompts Us From Within;
Kodaikanal Stories; Renouncing Doership and Enjoyership; Be Aware
What To Ask Swami For; Stories of Swami’s Protection and Glory”,
August 1st, 1999

On this day I just want to recall one incident which I do not know
whether I said earlier. One devotee from London came to Kodaikanal.
He brought with him fifty beautiful gold pens, 24-carat gold, real
gold pens! And he wanted to give those to Swami but he did not dare
to do it. Well, I was a greater fool in those days. Suddenly he came
to me and asked, "Mr. Anil Kumar, why don’t you please tell Swami
that I brought gold pens to be distributed to the boys." I took my
time. I did not act immediately because I did not want to take any
divine risk. But ultimately I picked up some courage. That day,
immediately after breakfast, I went close to His table and started
speaking, "Bhagavaning" slowly and softly, to draw His attention.

Immediately He said, "What! What do you want to say? Why are you
here?" I said, "Swami, one Sai brother from London has brought gold
pens." Immediately He said, "So what!" (Anil:)"Swami, he wants to
give them to You." He said, "I don't want them. I don't write, so I
don't want." (Anil:) "Not that, Swami. He wants You to distribute
them to the students." (Swami:)"Oh! Now I understand: You want them.
You take the pens," He said. "Now I understand. You are just
prolonging the discussion, extending point after point, with an idea
to have the pens. Then you have it for yourself." Now the cat is
out-of-the-bag.

Then somehow I said, "No, no, no, not that Swami. I just wanted to
tell You that he is here." And He immediately smiled and said, "You
know why he brought gold pens. He thought that he could bribe Me
like that. He thought that I can be corrupted by gold pens. He
thought that I would grant him an interview by this act. Understand
that these things will never work. Nothing doing. And if you ask for
the second time, you will also join him outside the bungalow." Then
I could understand what it is, how serious the situation is.

Why I am telling you is that we cannot draw the attention of Swami
by these means, no, no, no. Instead He prompts us from within. As we
heard on that Guru Poornima Day, Mr. Puri came from Indonesia all of
a sudden and started announcing that "I am here freely gifting 10
crores for the construction of Sri Sathya Sai Music and Fine Arts
College." Baba never asked him. Baba never told him His plan to
start a Music College. He never told anybody. Supposing that Swami
announces, I want to start a Music college, then you can take a
chance and I can take a chance. Both of us can take a chance. A
third person may grab the chance. But it is not so. He did not
announce. He did not tell anybody. How that man came out and started
telling, "I want to give 30 crores for Baba’s Music College." Who
said there's a Music College? Where's the need? Who told you?

This is an instance, my friends, to tell you how Swami works from
within. Swami works from within. No advertisement. No publicity. No
announcement. No program as such. Nothing like:"These are the
programs for which you can liberally come forward and participate."
There is nothing like a railway timetable or an Indian Airlines
schedule. Nothing whatsoever! People feel the prompting from within.
They liberally come forward to do it. Is it not enough to say that a
kind of transformation is brought about from within? It is not told.
It is not dictated. It is not commanded. He just gets things done,
working from within.

I should also tell you some other instance. When Bhagavan was there
in Kodaikanal, He wanted the boys to have some kind of a … I should
say what they put on the lips…Not lipstick! (Anil jokes :) For boys,
not lipstick; not yet! We have not started to play like that so far.
He wanted to give some kind of oily thing here (patting his face) …
Oh, mmm, something like that…because He felt they are in a cold
place, in a cold climate, so He wanted them to apply cold cream or
something like that. He started looking at everybody, saying, "You
need cold cream. Your skin is dry." He was commenting like that

Believe me, friends, as we were just talking to the boys, suddenly
one man came up with fifty tubes of this cold cream, to be given one
to each. Swami just looked at me. I could not tell the man the
discipline here. I said, "Swami, you did not tell him outwardly. You
told him from within. You made him bring all those cold creams to be
distributed to the boys." This is an instance to show how Swami
works from within. Yes. It is really fantastic. He does not tell
anybody.

It is always the beginning of summer when Swami visits Kodaikanal.
In fact one day after arriving there, He was remarking that it was
the beginning of summer. He said, "It is the season of mangoes."
Most of us like mangoes very much. I was feeling, "See, what is
this? Wherever can we get mangoes here in this hill station? Had I
been there, I should have been at my native place so that I could
have had a litre of mangoes, lots of them! Believe me, the very next
day, we got four basketfuls of mangoes! Immediately He came to me
and said, "Wherefrom the mangoes came?" I said, "They came from
You!" Then Bhagavan smiled and said, "You wanted to eat mangoes.
Therefore, I had to bring them here!" You see how things happen. The
moment you want it, you get it there immediately.

Last year somehow there had been a number of devotees accompanying
Swami, about eighty members. They came with their families. The boys
were feeling so badly that they did not have their photographs taken
with Swami: individual photographs taken with Swami and each student
separately. It is a life treasure to have such a photograph with
Bhagavan, an individual photo. It is not a small thing. It is more
important than our PhD degree. It is not an easy thing to get you
know. The boys said to me, "Sir, we do not have photos with Him.
What to do?" I said, "What to do? What can I do?" Then one day I
told them, "Be Ready! Be well-dressed!" They said, "Sir, what dress
shall we wear?" I told them, "Swami presented us with nice T-shirts
with Prashanthi emblems and "Om Sri Sai Ram" written on it. Ok, you
wear all the T-shirts presented by Bhagavan. The rest of the drama
we shall see how we can play it.

All of them were well-dressed with the T-shirts and the pants
presented by Swami to all of us. They were such nice fellows. Every
fellow was looking quite handsome. So they were all seated there.
Swami came out. "What is this? Exhibition! All are wearing
T-shirts?" Then He looked at me. He said, "You are also in T-shirt!"
I answered, "Oh, yes, Swami. Why not! You gave me a T-shirt. Why
should I not wear it!" (Swami:) "Mmmm…This is all a drama you have
done, I know." (Anil:) "Yes, Swami." He asked, "Why?" (Anil:)
"Swami, we do not have any individual photographs this time. During
this trip we did not take any photographs with You. So I only
suggested that we should be dressed like this so that we can take
individual photographs." Then He spiritually forced, religiously
forced every one of us to have an individual photograph taken with
Him! The boys were very, very happy about it. That desire, that
prayer to have photographs with Swami was fulfilled in that
inscrutable, wonderful way that day there in Kodaikanal. That is
Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba.